portiaslegacy

Two of the stories from his most recent book were read a Selected Shorts. I bought two of his book and got them autographed for my family and me.* During the Q&A he talked a lot about nostalgia, as a it is a precondition of American Indians and triggered by our current climate. Specifically how the digital age erodes personal connections and forces people in naturally introverted careers like fiction writers, have to become extroverts. It made me feel guilty about blogging, except for the fact that I worry that no one reads it and I am always trying to get people in my real life to read my blog.

I have yet to read his works though I always liked the movie, Smoke Signals. Now I will get around to it... sometime after all the other books that I have promised to myself. Right now I am reading William Faulkner's Sanctuary. Over two years ago I decided to alternate between Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez. Back in high school they always emphasized how Márquez was influenced by Faulkner. I have always liked Márquez, in the way that connects with my love of Spanish and not being particularly good at it. During that time I read Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury and As I Lay Dying and Márquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch (if anyone who reads this has read that tell me- we need to talk) Love in the Time of Cholera and Love and Other Demons. Part of me felt this was a very bad idea; I don't really like Faulkner. I don't get the big deal, I find him nigh illegible and not worth the challenge most of the time. Also those Márquez novels include his most freaky trends. I stopped this because I was starting RISD, and honestly those first three weeks felt so damn long anyway. Sanctuary is in some ways easier this time around. I still have The General in His Labyrinth and A Light in August at home to complete this effort. (For the record, my grandma Edna probably bought the Faulkner, though I am responsible for all the Márquez purchases). There are plenty of other books I have around that I have not read.

*I love getting books autographed. I have stories about Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Terry Prachet and Audrey Niffenegger. I will tell them on request.

I got the worst insult of my life.

The last project in my graphic design class for the semester is doing some kind of self promotional piece. I was one of the last people to present the ideas we had been thinking of. Several people mentioned how blogging is a way to get your name out there. During my time to present ideas I mentioned that I have a blog and have been trying to promote it and been fairly unsuccessful. I talked a little about what this is about, event though that is very broad and hard to pin down. I was given some advise like "be sure to let people know that you want them share this with other people". Then the teacher went on a bit of a spiel that included "there could be many reasons no one is commenting on your blog, maybe because you are not saying anything original or new" then back tracked "I'm mean I don't know I have not read your blog... I'm just saying"

I knew teacher did not like me. I have had my problems in the class the first assignment (my poster for Asperger's awareness) had not gotten to a version that was direct/clear enough. For the create you own magazine mine was more text based than some of the others, which may have annoyed her. And I am not always on time... But I still don't think I deserved a comment that mean. I had talked to her in depth about the questionaire I did on Aspergers and posted back here. I mentioned how insecure and neurotic I get about why people do not comment much on this when I put a lot of effort into it. It was just so mean of her to push like that.

We do not communicate well. I have not known how to apply most of her criticism. I don't enjoy her class and I am thinking that studying as a continuing ed student is not good for my studies.

I am starting looking for more work again. This is not what I need for this time.

At RISD I noticed something interesting. We lin the landscape architecture were taught of Le Courbusier's writing an influence as prevelant, but generally destructive. Like Jane Jacob's we are derisive of his concept for a "Radiant City". Architects student were still affectionately fond of him (I met some one who named her hamster "Courbu").

One of the women in my graphic design class trained as an architect. Despite saying that she had little knowledge of architectural history I had to ask her what she thought of Le Courbusier. Not much, but she assumed that his fame rested on many of the same things as Frank Gehry- just looking distinct amongst other look a likes. I mentioned how he had no respect for regionality (he submitted the same plan for contests about redesigning two cities) and she was shocked.

Today I found this article. I was really excited to read it. It makes a lot of comparisons between Le Courbusier and dictators. Normall I cringe when comparisons to historic dictators are thrown around, but this time it is appropriate.

Thank you cifan70

( meme )

I did not love the third season of Mad Men. The way I did not love it was sort of like how I did not like season five of Lost. I loved every episode before these seasons, had very high expectations and got let down. In both cases I feel there was a lack of commitment to certain plots that the writers or the network thought about then just back away from. Then they focus on stories that are more familiar and require less time to explain.T he season finales as enticements for the next seasons. On Mad MenI liked Don and Betty finally ending their marriage, but I did not really believe in the creation of Sterling Cooper Draper and Pryce. I liked seeing Jacob visit all those characters at various points in their lives, but I hated the quadrangle and the shoot out at the Swan. I plan to watch the next seasons, but it feels like work.

Strangely the two tv shows I am having the most fun watching right now are Ugly Betty and Fringe. While I have always loved Betty there was fair number of stories that I have absolutely hated. It is kind of amazing it never became unwatchable. I think the show knows and understands its boundaries better now. I am worried that Glee, which is a similar tone and having similar plotting problems will not be able to bounce back with as much grace and light. (The pregnancy storylines are dreadful, and I hate the characters of Puck and Quinn so much that I resent the airtime they get). As bad as it was that the characters Henry, Gio and Christina got sacrificed to crap stories, the ensemble is working better than ever and the balance is quite good.

I did not really like Fringe when It started. I compared it badly to other shows. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was doing such a better job with technological developments out of control, and using it as a metaphor for the relationship between child and parent. Life on Mars did a more interesting job with bizarre mysteries that might have joined into a bigger pattern. But both of those shows got cancelled, and somehow Fringe got a lot better. It is kind of hard to say how it got better, because a lot of the set up that I thought was clunky or over self important. Once the show felt like it earned its mythos it was a lot easier to take. But I think my favorite thing is how much of the show is paranoia as something destructive. This season had a plot where an army colonel turned his soldiers into suicide bombs because he fears the Observer. But all he knows about the Observer is the same thing we can take from his title. I saw the pilot twice, fairly close together. While the first time I got that Olivia Dunham’s partner/lover John Scott betrayed her and the nation. But the second time it was pretty clear that was an emotional reaction to finding out that John Scott had secrets. The discovery of his actual double life later on made much more sense of things and was satisfying.

Now I like Fringe so much that I am using it to compare V badly to it. For starters, it seems to present paranoia as a virtue, or at least a survival instinct. I am disappointed that Elizabeth Mitchell’s character is high strung personifies the extremely freaked out tone of the show. There is also the possibility that it is all right wing propaganda. Attack anyone who tries change our way of functioning. Even when I think that comparisons people are making are crazy (there is plenty of criticism of the current administration by left media, and it has done nothing to try and shut it down for starters).

I watched the original miniseries, and while some of it is affecting, the plot does work with the Nazi allegory they were trying for. It is kind of a corollary for the problem I had with Inglorious Basterds. There they just used Nazis a boogey man so the violence of the revenge fantasy would come along without need for justification or thought. V explicitly compares the Visitors to Nazis they are still keeping them far enough away that they are other. It allows xenophobia, and keeps people from thinking about why fascist ideas are, or why they would appeal. And since people compare others to Nazis of anything these days, it is just enhances the bad taste of that too.

So last night the House passed a health care reform bill that included the Stupack amendment that prevents any government run insurance plan from covering abortion. According to the Associated Press it would also prevent private insurance companies from covering abortion. This is clearly a women hating move and very harmful to the possibility that all classes could have equal access to medical care. Please call your senators and fill out this form letter to Obama to make sure this is not in the final health care reforms.

As some of you know I am a graphic design student. I have taken on a project of designing a poster for Asperger's awareness and I would like some help in guiding my focus. I have created a series of questions that I hope you will answer. All answers will be kept confidential, and I would appreciate if this could be shared with others.

What does it take you to feel comfortable with other people?

How can you tell when other people feel comfortable around you?

What happens if the people around you were not able to provide this cue?

When is appropriate to introduce yourself?

When is it inappropriate to introduce yourself?

What is necessary grooming?

How one does dress to be presentable to society?

What do you think of when you hear the term Asperger’s Syndrome?

What would you like to know about it?

Do you know anyone with Asperger’s Syndrome?

If yes, what is it like interacting with them?

How did you find out about their diagnosis?

Does it change the first opinion you had about this person?

I need some one to teach me how to write java scripts. Why do so many instructions go directly into the "engine architecture" or whatever. It is not going to help me make slides shows on websites or interactive maps, you know the things that I actually need.

Shakira and P!nk wore the same dress at the MTV Video Music Awards this year. I had already started writing this article about following Shakira’s career, and how it invited comparisons to her contemporaries. The argument is about how most of the time these comparisons are reductive. They do not give any insight into either Shakira or to whomever she is compared. It just makes it easier to pigeon holes them. This is a disservice to both parties. I hope to use the many women who appear in this piece to highlight that there is more to their personas and outputs than can easily be reduced. Even when dressed the same, individuals cannot be equated.

( Shakira and the World )

Notes on the Conference Speakers - Memphis Part 4

It is about two weeks since I attended all of this. I am obviously not going to get around to conveying everything. So I am doing much of bullet points on the speakers in the general conference.

Thursday

Al Bell- Former direct of Stax records. Spoke of the importance of creativity with courage. It was a motif in his speech.

Stefan Sagmeister I have known who he is for years but I frequently forget the name. Then someone points out that he had a definition of himself as a designer carved into his body. Now I have his book, so I'll find out if it scarred. I found most of the talk on TED.com, only the end with the Sagmeister adapted lyrics for Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". They included a reference to TED.com, which would have made seeing it on TEd.com funnier.



Carin Goldberg Inspiration or Motivation? - I cannot remember this and I did not take notes

Friday Morning

Daniel Eatock An artist who focused on circular natures and paradoxes. I intend to contact him to see if he will comision me to do anything. He inspired me to take a picture of my camera strap.



Roger Martin-- Business based, analytic with an appreciation of intuition. Considers the synthesis of these design. Everyone found in inspirational. Now I will have to use the word "heuristic" in conversation.

Afternoon
Marissa Mayer: The Design of Google. She has been there since near the beginning and helped discuss the ways heat they got people to trust it. She also did some analysis the effect of small color variations within the Google font color and some amusing stories about getting Google to be multi-lingual.

Elizabeth Coleman: Design and the Liberal Arts Education, president of Bennington College. So inspirational, I would apply to be an undergrad again. Really politically changed and unafraid and purposeful.

Stefan G Bucher German with an American accent. Draws monsters and animates them. Is proud of his geekiness. Did a great Supper Bowl ad. Just go to his site.

Saturday Morning

Nick Law: Design-led AdvertisingAutobiography of hoping around from Australia, to England and the US more distant than what the subject actually was. It is a good thing some of my affinity sessions covered that.

Generation Gap A very young (still undergraduate) graphic designer and a semi retired industrial designer got set up for a mentoring program. We only really saw them present on their work, which was great, but still like a trailer.

Afternoon

David Butler Coca-cola's vice president recent cover boy on Fast Company. Abstract, incisive, zen good looking. I wish I went to us affinity session.

Jill Greenberg How was I too busy to miss this scandal? Also how are her manips worse than the the official photo? She seemed caustic in fun. I should now follow her career.

This is the end of the Memphis talk. It helped think of design as something very broad and exciting. It was slow to write this, but I needed it as much as I needed the trip. This is not everything, but it is enough and I have to move on.

I would have got arround to writing this sooner if I had not been behind on my class work.

( The Penultamite Chapter )

One of the interactive events set up at the conference was a gigantic wall on which we were all invited to write.

( Here Goes )

The planned final two entries lack images and are much more in depth.

I am having a very busy week and always find committing to writing difficult. However I have promised myself (and now you) that I will write four articles about my trip to Memphis, TN for the AIGA Make think conference. Here is the ( Read more... )

There is always going to be more to tell.

This was my favorite sign on Beal St.

I intend to do a lot more with images in this blogs soon and several posts about the AIGA convention. Keep you posted and please help me stick to this plan.

Off to Memphis TN. I'll be back Sunday.

So now in the midst of all the difficulties with getting a public health care option passed gives room for the anti-choicers to make access to abortion a very difficult business. For some reason there are these people who think that because they don't approve of means that it should not be an option for people they do not know. Using this line of reasoning if there were a large Jehovah's WItness lobby working the health care debate they could make sure blood and organ donations were not covered. Christian Scientist could argue that all medicinal aid should not be covered as they have their own healing practices. These issues are not pressed because there is still some respect that it is up to the individual. So please help ensure that abortion gets covered by the public option. Donate to Planned Parenthood .

So I missed my deadline for last week posting. I will try and make it up with more short ones this week. For the past week the family computer was out for repairs before determining that it should just just be replaced. I did not have the opportunity to de-authorize my iTunes accounts there. Well at least more or less everything is backed up.

But today, while working on my graphic design work (some of which has a deadline of Thursday) my personal laptop clicked out. No clicking it back on. I am feeling fucked. That stuff did not have back ups.

Saw this movie last night as some people on my flist seemed to like it and it has ended up in a bunch of picspams and icons. I feel like the movie was a complete waste. It did nothing to justify the amount of time it took. There was no reason for the historical revisionism. It lacked any understanding of human emotions. It was basically a bunch of scenes that Quentin Tarantino liked in earlier war movies, done in the way that he preferred.

I don't like using comparisons in reviews because of he tendency to bash one thing with another. But since Tarantino is a self-aggrandizing hack I will make an exception. First, he names his production company after a film by Jean Luc Goddard. Goddard is an easy target when you want to complain about self important directors, elevation of style over substance, a macho to misogynistic portrayal of sex, but he was no hack. Even when you think that his movies are made for himself primarily, you cannot deny that he knows the medium. There is a story that when Goddard made Breathless/À bout de soffle the film was too long so he edited it so it only had the scenes/shots that interested him. Plot does not matter, but it is still briskly paced and exhilarating to watch. It felt like Tarantino took this approach to writing the script, and decided that it justified not editing. Honestly, I still feel like Goddard's Two or Three Things I Know About Her/2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle is one of the most hateful films ever made, but it does not bother me in it indulgences nearly as much as Inglourious Basterds.

Something else that Inglourious Basterds shares with much of Goddard's work is how its obsession with cinema shoehorns its way into the plot. The film drops GW Pabst and Leni Riefenstahl's names a lot but do not care about the images they made. Having Goebbles as a character did noting to discuss the images that Germany was trying to build of itself and the title characters did less for the Americans. Which brings me to a next point of contention and area to poorly compare the film to.

Earlier in this blog I wrote a bit about Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise. Berthold Brecht's work as a dramatist is discussed during the chapter on the failed Wienmar Republic. Ross believes that despite all of Brecht's writings about the political importance of theater Brecht was a closet schlock miester. (Tarantino is a schlock miester, not closeted but still too ego centric in storytelling). He liked having really violent characters and scenes for the shock value, and then claim some Communist ideology behind it. Ross goes into a play that Brecht got Paul Hindemith to compose music for. Hindemith was disgusted by the play's anti-humanitarian allegorical content, and Ross suggests that the experience of this collaboration may have led Hindemith to being more sympathetic to the Nazis. Inglourious Basterds takes the Nazi as short hand for villains so that it would be fun seeing the title characters brutalize them. Thereby it does nothing to differentiate us from them, but does not have any interest in exploring the discomfort this could create. Which is just lazy.

For the first time in weeks I am all uptodate in revieing my LinkedIn mailings and sending out coverletters. I even finished the life coaching homework which caused me so much stress last week. I am also up to date on this. And I have three (!) job interviews this week.

Gosh this is better than finales being done!

While I was in Maine I read Pictures at a Revolution- Five Movies and the Birth of a New Hollywood. It is about the production and critical reception of the five nominees for the Best Picture Oscar in 1967. I had not been that drawn to reading it, I have not really been into watching movies much over the past couple of years, I don't care about the Oscars, and Mom bought it for me before I got addicted to Mad Men. Even after I could be like, well these movies are late 1960s and the show is early 1960s so really different times... But no, the book is amazing (and it was a great substitute for Mad Men).

It brought back my fantasy about making movies. Even when portrayed as pulling teeth frustrating business it is so... well I guess I am just in love. I started sketching a treatment. I have never written anything really, and I have not gone to the source materials I would need to fill this out, but whatever... Back to those 1967 movies.

Part of the pint of the book is that it is just as hard to make a bad movie as a good one. The stories behind the scenes of Dr. Dolittle are painful. I would never want to work with Rex Harrison, and probably will have trouble watching him at all ever again.

In the Heat of the Night had one of the less troubled productions, but it still said a lot about where America was at the time. The book also made clear how painful and constricting Sidney Poitier found his on screen persona up to that time to be. I really felt for him. I had not seen the movie until a week ago, but I have to agree with Andrew Sarris that his character in the film was kind of ridiculously inoffensive. Really he did not even say anything when being arrested in his first scene! And he has connections with the feds and knows all about botany and forensics! The murder mystery part makes no sense, but it does not really matter. The tension in scenes is based on something more real and is good. IT is well made, with a great soundtrack. Rod Steiger earned his Oscar, and I think Sterling Silliphant did too. Also the shooting of it is fascinating and Norman Jewison and Hal Ashby screening it in San Francisco is a good story...

I now have a lot more respect for Warren Beatty. I liked some of the movies I saw him in before, but generally thought of him as some one before my time. Also I thought it was weird that for someone who had a reputation behind the scenes of being detail oriented, opinionated, and assertive behind the scenes so often played really inarticulate characters on screen. I probably should replace "inarticulate" with "self-conscience". It is broader and more accurate for more of the roles.

The book makes it seem like he spent a good deal of 1963-4 trying to get What's New Pussycat? made as a staring vehicle. The scripts were not going in the way he wanted, but could still say he thought they were funny. Eventually since he was just an actor and not a trusted box office draw there was a lot of fighting and he "diva-d [his] way out of the picture." But after after meeting Robert Towne he was able to explain some of what attracted him to What's New Pussycat? and over several year they were able to make that into Shampoo. That is just inspiring. Especially as Shampoo was a good movie. But his relationship with Bonnie and Clyde as a producer is fascinating. I loved the stories about his relationships with Jack Warner and Francois Truffaut (the former for their outrageous-ness, the latter for the ironic twists). His relationship with Arthur Penn and Towne seem so real that I am sure that the book only scratched at the surface.

I had only seen most of Bonnie and Clyde years ago. I remember liking it, but only just watched it. It is such an odd unsettling movie. I saw Public Enemies earlier this summer. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. Considering how much of the subject an plot they have in common (fame crazed criminals, rob banks not people, get gunned down not arrested) it is surprising how different they are. Bonnie and Clyde seems to break more conventions despite being over forty years ago. It is also more comfortable with big shifts in tones, including that dream like sequence they visit Bonnie's family. I felt something more with it. They both seem resistant to having a point of view, morally, but Bonnie and Clyde does not make that seem like a surpessed personality

Also now that I can my fascination with Beatty has hit its peak I finally got around to watching Reds. OMG that is such a good movie. Sometimes the format frustrated me but it also was amazing in correcting Bertolt Brecht's theatrical ideas. Disassociation can be spiritualenlightening which is so much more than agitprop. And the feelings you get are genuine and un-manipulative. I bet in 1981 the sting of Jack Reed's trip to the Middle East might have been a bit harsher for liberal viewers (and of course the makers) as it was closer to the whole Weathermen shit, but it is still so painful. Also a movie about politics that is not really political? That is a tough balancing act. Also the love story was one of the most believable and engrossing ever in movies.

I wrote this all at once, with out editing. I probably will go over it again for the copy. I just needed to share and hope that